The Digital-Only Game!

With the rapid pace of digital adoption, convergence across the technology media telecom value chain, and consolidation among the players, the Indian media and entertainment value chain continues to evolve, innovate, and adapt to the dynamic landscape. Estimated at Rs.1.5 trillion in 2017, the M&E segment is poised to cross Rs.2 trillion by 2020, at a CAGR of 11.6 percent. Digital subscriptions with a growth of 50 percent in 2017 are moving to 4 million digital only subscribers, expected to generate subscription revenues of USD 20 billion.

4K UHD has been gaining attention, following its success in South Korea at the 2018 Winter Olympics in May 2017. Major deployment is expected at the FIFA World Cup being held in Russia this June. Proliferation of NexGen TV is expected to be rapid as the percentage of UHD capable TVs alone is expected to rise to over 56 percent by 2020, at over 600 million devices in addition to smartphones. India with its smartphone base of over 500 million is potentially well placed for technologies such as ATSC 3.0, which seem to have superiority over DVB-T2, at least in its current form. India’s terrestrial spectrum is largely unused, except for a few Prasar Bharti slots, and it may be the right time to take a quantum jump to the new streaming-over-the-air technology.

We congratulate Raghavendra Rathor on his promotion as the minister of state at the ministry of information and broadcasting. The industry is looking toward him to deliver on their long-standing appeal for an autonomous Doordarshan and an independent regulatory body, which regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in all the states.  Online content regulation; action on recommendations made by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Ease of Doing Business in Broadcasting Sector; insistence of ISRO for all the channels to shift their operations to Indian satellites, who have ongoing contracts with foreign satellites, signed after receiving concurrence from the ministry are some other major issues pending with the ministry.

We look forward to meeting our readers at BroadcastAsia 2018, at Suntec, Singapore from June 26–28, 2018.